High Plains Drifter
|
List Price: Our Price: $6.58 You Save: $3.41 (34%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $2.80 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of High Plains Drifter
Movie Review: "...looks like the wrong dogs came home."
Summary: 5 Stars
This was always my favorite Clint Eastwood Western. UNFORGIVEN would come close years later, but I still enjoy DRIFTER, Clint's first Western as a director (he directed PLAY MISTY FOR ME previously).
The supernatural touches and haunting wisps of music add another layer of mystery to the story. Is Clint's "Stranger" a real person, or is he the restless ghost of the marshal bullwhipped to death in the streets of Lago?
That question elevates the film from the familiar Western revenge story, by then growing a little long in the tooth by 1973. The wholesale revenge exacted on everyone in the town as well as the thuggish killers, the sight of the entire town painted red (with "Hell" sloppily painted on its sign), the way Clint emerges from the desert heat vapors in the opening--it all gives the film a lot of style and intrigue.
It makes for a very cool Western.
Movie Review: Clint Paints The Town Red...Literally and Figuratively
Summary: 5 Stars
In Clint Eastwood's second directorial effort he takes his cues from his mentor, Sergio Leone, but adds enough unique touches that distinguish him as a singular voice. His Stranger is no "Man With No Name" from the Leone films. That character was somewhat anti-heroic but still retained a moral code. At first glance his character appears to be an amoral cold-blooded killer who would seem to be more akin to harm the "good folk" of Lago than protect them. It's only as the story unfolds that you realize the townsfolk aren't the innocents of "The Seven Samurai" but there's a dark heart lying within them. The only redeemable resident is the dwarf, Mordecai(Billy Curtis). What Eastwood leaves you with is alot of moral ambiguity about whom to root for in this intriguing film. It's a daring and ambitious turn that requires the audience to evaluate their concept of good and evil.Movie Review: Eastwood turns in his typical performance
Summary: 5 Stars
This gives the old saying, "painting the town red," a whole new meaning.
Eastwood is portraying a gunman wreaking vengeance on an entire Western town for standing by while a gang of nasties brutally kills the sheriff. One gets the impression, at the end, that he is the reincarnation of the murdered sheriff, himself.
This is, in no way, intended as a criticism: Eastwood, like John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable and a host of other fine actors, always plays himself. His stock in trade is his "tough guy" impression, and he does it flawlessly.
His films are always well-done, and he always plays the same basic part, which his audience obviously loves.
Joseph (Joe) Pierre
author of Handguns and Freedom...their care and maintenance
and other books
Movie Review: High Plains Drifter
Summary: 5 Stars
Eastwood's eerie, magnificent "Drifter," his second effort in the director's chair, turns the final showdown cliché of the Hollywood Western on its head: Instead of confronting the killer posse alone, for money or out of brute contempt, The Stranger teaches the cowardly townsfolk how to defend themselves--then promptly disappears. And where else but in an Eastwood flick would the protagonist, for the purposes of intimidation, have a town literally painted red and renamed Hell? Such flashes of dark humor animate the story, as do The Stranger's haunting flashbacks, the austere sets, and the cast of irregulars. Enigmatic and violent, "Drifter" reworks the Man With No Name persona into a mystical folk hero, and the effect is riveting.Movie Review: Highly original and ahead of its time!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
Critics and audiences made a huge deal over Unforgiven as being innovative and being a modern Western. Clint Eastwood did this in 1973 with High Plains Drifter. With set designs harkening back to German Expressionism and filming techniques that employ Surrealism, this film was lost in the 70's cynical treatment of the Western as a genre and never got its just dues. Those of us who love the Western will never pass up a chance to watch it in reruns. This was a Western that pulls no punches and all of the characters are despicable. Innovative, provocative, and uncompromising, High Plains Drifter was way ahead of its time for its filming technique, treatment of the anti-hero and the forerunner of many "revisionist" Westerns to come.